Antonio di Pietro

Antonio di Pietro (2 October 1950-) was an Italian politician who was best known for his role as a prosecutor in the Tangentopoli trials of the 1990s.

Biography
Antonio di Pietro was born in Montenero di Bisaccia, Molise, Italy in 1950, and he became a policeman in 1978. After a few years, he started a judicial career as a prosecutor, and, in February 1992, he began investigating Milan's politicians and prosecutors for corruption and kickbacks. He investigated hundreds of local and national politicians, working his way up to important figures such as former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi; the Italian press named the investigation Tangentopoli ("bribesville"). He became the most popular of the judges in the investigation, but he was forced to resign from the judiciary following a slander campaign caused by his investigation focused on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. In 1996, he served in Romano Prodi's government as Public Works Minister, and then as Infrastructures Minister from 2006 to 2008. He founded his own party, the liberal Italy of Values party, but he became an independent in 2014.